


The Most Daring Adventurer

by BrownieFox



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: 3rd Person Omniscient, Della n launchpad are there for 2 seconds, Donald centric, Drowning, Gen, HDL centric too, I have a name for Scrooge’s sword, Morse Code, PTSD, Scrooge is way more mentioned than seen, Shenanigans, Webby gets hurt, Well almost, but it wasn’t relevant, but sorta more hdl kinda pov, gettinf lost in the woods, gladstone shows up in chapter 5, greek myth references, huey's got the mcduck anger problems, more tags added later, mostly preseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: Huey, Dewey, and Louie were raised by their Uncle and yet knew very little about him. Snapshots of the times they learned a bit more about him and their bloodline.or5 times the triplets learned something about their Uncle + 1 time they were told something (and what made them believe it)





	1. A Blackened Temper

The things the triplets didn’t know about their mom could fill a book. But just a book, since it wasn’t like they knew anything much to begin with, so to even consider a book was realistic but also an ultimately unattainable thing. It was one of those books locked away in the white house. It surely existed, but actually finding and reading it was so out of the realm of possibility it wasn’t so much as considered half the time. Their mom’s name was Della Duck, she was Uncle Donald’s sister. That was as far into the book as they were allowed to read.

But their Uncle? They had a feeling what they didn’t know could fill a bookshelf. Not a library, let’s not get carried away here, but there was this constant feeling that, as weird as it was sometimes to consider, there was much more to their Uncle than there at first seemed to be. It was a mystery, it was something to figure out, and when the summers got a bit too boring, and scheming ran out or there were no Junior Woodchuck meetings or campouts to attend, the concept of a mystery was the most alluring thing in the world. And piece by piece, the trio would become determined to figure out what secrets their Uncle held. 

oOo

“I’m thinking… he lost his job.” 

“Pfft, nah, the houseboat wouldn’t be floating if that happened. I bet he burned his hand on the stove.”

“Not a bad guess, but he’s totally actually fighting somebody. Somebody came in, tried to rob the boat, but then Donald pounced on him and now they’re in a fight, but they’re so evenly matched we have to help Donald out, and then we’ll be able to get a raise to our allowances for our efforts!” 

Huey and Louie gave Dewey a look. Dewey crossed his arms. 

“Hey, it could happen!” 

“But that would mean we’d have to intervene.” Louie pointed out. “Personally, I’m fine just waiting for the storm to end. 

The three looked out to their houseboat as it splashed back and forth in the water, making the neighboring boats in the marina sway. Anybody who would bother to get out and shout at their uncle had long since found different marinas to dock at or had simply gotten used to it. The few people who had tried to confront Uncle Donald would find that the anger that caused the waves was terrifying when you met it face to face and it was directed at you, especially when the conversation you were attempting to have was totally unintelligible.

They stood there for a while, but the rocking didn’t stop and Huey started to shuffle his feet, and the other two were already groaning by the time he opened his mouth, knowing what he was going to say. 

“My needles are in the houseboat.” Huey says. “I need to practice for my sewing patch.” 

Louie’s groan in particular was loud as he led the way down to the deck to the boat, the other two following after him. They were all used to the slightly-perilous crossing from the dock to the boat, making the leap at the right time to avoid falling in. Dewey stumbled a bit, nearly slipping and falling, but Huey managed to grab his arm in time. A shame, really. Louie wouldn’t’ve minded something to laugh at before they had to confront whatever was going on with their uncle today. 

They opened the door, and were greeted home from school by the very enraged squawking of their uncle. They snuck past him to their room first, putting backpacks down and taking out various homework. Louie flipped to a page titled simply ‘things to buy when i’m rich’ and further underlined the already underlined ‘earplugs’. Dewey snickled upon seeing that and swiped the pen from his brother’s hand and underlined it a few times himself. Huey caught sight of it and smiled too, but then turned and looked at the closed door. 

“Well, let’s see what’s up today.” He said, like they were walking to their doom, though such theatrics were ultimately pointless. They had passed Uncle Donald on their way in and now as they reopened the door, the same sight greeted them, unchanged. He had gotten to the point in his outburst where whatever had even been the point and cause of it was wholly forgotten as the duck just screamed and shouted, jumping up and down. Nothing was broken, a small miracle that seemed to happen with every-increasing frequency. 

“Hey Uncle Donald.” Huey said, finally letting their presence be known as he got to the dining table, putting fabric and worksheets and needles and thread down, claiming a third of the space. Dewey put some homework up too, even though they all knew he was only going to do some of it before eventually convincing Donald to let him run off to the beach or something. Louie walked past them all to the couch, flopping down and picking up the remote. 

For a heartbeat the furious expression on Donald’s face was directed towards them, but none of them so much as flinched, knowing that a moment later it’d become the tired but happy to see them face of their Uncle. 

“Hi boys.” Donald said, more sigh than words as he rubbed a hand down his face, like he was wiping the anger off. “How was school?”

“Good.” They chorused with various levels of honesty. Donald let out another sigh, this one longer as he leaned on the kitchen counter like he was moments away from falling over. He looked tired. He usually did, but today it was particularly noticeable. “Do you boys need any help?”

“No, nothing really tough today.” Huey replied brightly. Dewey was frowning and squinting at his homework as if that’d help, but didn’t contradict Huey. It was just math afterall, and if he needed help he could ask Louie. Heck, for the right price Louie’d even  _ do  _ the math homework, even using his nondominant hand and getting a few wrong to throw the teacher off from the little scheme.

Uncle Donald nodded, looking distracted as he picked up his phone from the floor of the boat. It was still rocking slightly from side to side and would for a few more minutes. Their uncles phone was in one piece, and had somehow managed to survive tantrum after tantrum. Louie said that it was because of how old it was. Dewey had once tried breaking it himself once, throwing it around on the sidewalk, but it wasn’t so much as undented. Donald regarded this immortal device with that exhausted look.

“I’ll be right back.” He said, already typing something into his phone again, the hard and upset edge starting to creep back in. The trio were quiet until the door closed behind their uncle.

“Phone, why didn’t I guess phone?” Huey said out loud.

“Lost his job is still on the table.” Louie pointed out smugly. “Should’ve tried to get you guys to bet money on it.” 

The afternoon carried on in almost quiet. Louie sat on the couch, Ottoman Empire playing as he drifted in and out of naps, every-so-often taking a sip from the Dr. Pep he’d opened yesterday and saved half of for today. Huey finished his homework fairly quickly and had moved on to practicing his sewing, a seam ripper at the ready and picked up frequently, always following a frustrated groan that was ever-increasing in volume. Dewey had doodles all over the margins of his homework, only having completed maybe three of the problems before giving up and was now trying to do tricks with a yo-yo. Louie would critic him every-so-often, and Dewey would always reply ‘I’ve got this’ before breaking a glass and quickly throwing the evidence into the ocean.

Donald returned after a couple hours, feathers rustled and teeth still clenched, phone in such a tight grip that a weaker device would give up the ghost. The triplets gave a few scattered ‘welcome back’s, Huey’s coming after the others, barely looking up from his handiwork. Uncle Donald grabbed a glass from the cupboard, not noticing how his boys all held their breath, praying that he wouldn’t notice the missing one. He didn’t, filling the cup with water and pulling a generous amount of ice-cubes in it, refilling the ice-tray while he was at it. Both Dewey and Louie noticed how their Uncle rested his knuckles against the cold glass more than he actually drank from it. 

“What was that all about?” Dewey finally asked, unable to wait and see if Donald would eventually give up the information on his own.

“Nothing to worry about.” Uncle Donald assured them. Probably a money problem then. Dewey was now the one wearing a smug smile, directed to Louie who just rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the TV. Not a lost job. Their Uncle always told them if he lost a job.

He pulled out the laptop and went off to the deck, in the right spot that he could look through the window and see them. It was probably finances or something. The boys were well aware of their living situation, but for whatever reason their Uncle Donald was always careful to not show them the numbers and such, always working on that stuff away from their curious eyes. Dewey started work on the rest of the homework, eventually giving in and calling for his brother’s help that Louie reluctantly gave, sitting next to the other duck and trying to re-explain what the teacher had said during class. 

Huey made a sound like he was being strangled, and the other two watched as he ripped through his stitches like they had personally wronged him. There was a rather sizable pile of loose threads from all the other attempts. He was glaring at the piece of fabric in his hand, plucking out the loose thread ends and adding them to the pile. There were various little threads clinging to the feathers on his hand that Huey didn’t bother trying to get off. 

“Uh, you okay over there?” Louie raised an eyebrow. 

“I’m  _ fine!” _ Huey snapped, slamming a hand on the table. Dewey muffled a laugh as best he could, which earned the fiery gaze to be directed to him. “It’s  _ just  _ some  _ stitches.  _ It shouldn’t be  _ a problem!”  _ Huey went on, and smacked the table again - hand landing on a pin. He drew his hand back sharply with a small yelp that quickly evolved into a full blown scream as he flipped the table. 

“Abort, abort, emergency protocol ‘Uncle’s Lost It’ activate!” Dewey whispered, grabbing Louie’s arm and pulling away from the fallen table and volatile brother, leaving his homework to fend for itself. 

“How are baby pictures of us going to calm down  _ Huey?”  _ Louie pointed out.

“You’re right. Well, if there’s no other choice, guess we’ll have to put him down.” Dewey said dramatically, looking at the utensil drawer.

The door to the houseboat slammed open, their Uncle returning with the laptop tucked under his arm. His eyes were wide, body language stiff and tense as he looked around, assessing the situation. Dewey, one hand rifling through the utensil drawer and pulling out a butter knife while the other hand still held onto the loose arm of Louie’s hoodie. Louie stood next to Dewey and waved at his uncle, the other arm retracted into his hoodie. And Huey was standing in front of his tipped over chair, scattered papers and sewing supplies strewn about his feet, and screaming one long and continuous shout, fists shaking, hat having fallen off his head at some point.

“Huey?!” Donald shouted, louder than Huey’s scream. Huey managed to stop screaming, but with the way his face was screwed up it was like it physically hurt him to do so and the shaking of his fists grew stronger. The laptop was thrown on the couch as the Uncle rushed over. “What happened? What’s wrong? Are you okay?!”

“I’m  _ fine!”  _ Huey grit out again, eyes getting shiny with tears. Donald was upon him in a moment, wrapping his arms around the little duck. Huey latched onto him right away, hands breaking out of their tight fists to grab onto the back of Donald’s shirt. Huey screamed again, this time muffled up as it was shouted into his Uncle’s shoulder. Dewey looked over at Louie, holding up the butter knife and mouthing ‘do we still need this’. Louie shrugged and after a long moment’s consideration, Dewey put the knife away. 

Eventually Huey pulled away from his uncle, furiously wiping at his red-rimmed eyes, the shaking of his fists now just a mild tremble. Seeing as things were now safe, the other two set about picking up some of the fallen homework assignments.

“Do you think ‘my brother blew up and destroyed my homework’ is a good enough excuse?” Dewey asked, regarding his incomplete worksheet with distaste. Huey gave a short laugh at that.

“Maybe if you say it was Uncle Donald they will.” Louie suggested.

“What happened?” Donald said again, now that Huey had calmed down significantly.

“It’s nothing.” Was Huey’s first response, but Donald sat back and folded his arms in a way that clearly said he was willing to wait there all night if that was what it took. “I just… I’ve been trying to get these stitches right for a while now and I just… can’t.” Huey admitted, looking at his hands. There was a bit of red on his feathers from where he’d accidentally stabbed himself with the pin. Donald jumped up, running over to the bathroom and coming back a second later with antibacterial spray and a bandaid. 

“Do you need help?” Uncle Donald asked. 

“Do you know how to do this?” Huey asked right back with clear doubt in his voice, picking up the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook from where it had fallen and flipping back to the page about sewing, showing it to his Uncle.

“Uh, no,” Donald admitted, “But I’ll give it a try.” And with a look of pure determination on his face, picked up one of Huey’s extra needles.

Hours later found the two of them on the deck of the ship. Dewey and Louie had gone to bed a bit ago but Donald had allowed Huey to stay up until he could do the stitch well. About an hour or two ago they’d finally managed to do the stitch right, followed by a large amount of celebration. While Huey practiced, Uncle Donald had gotten out some old ripped jackets and shirts that needed some mending, and they spend the time in relative and comfortable silence. There’s a few new band-aids around their fingers from the earlier attempts, and Uncle Donald had come pretty close to having another tantrum. 

Huey regarded his work proudly, pleased with how it was finally coming out, and found himself having to stifle a yawn. It was later than he usually went to bed, and Donald was usually stricter about bedtimes, but he also knew he wouldn't have been able to sleep well if he hadn’t been able to do this. He hadn’t been sleeping well the past couple nights already, continuously getting back up and staring at the page over and over again, trying to figure out where he kept going wrong. 

Uncle Donald yawned too, the tiredness of his eyes seeping into his body and making him sag into his chair. Huey considered his uncle as the duck shook himself in an effort to stay awake and went back to mending the ruined shirt sleeve, ripped from another one of his tantrums. They’d all become rather good at fixing things that had broken. 

“Hey, Uncle Donald?” Huey asked, setting his stuff down on the table. He’d done well enough today, and he could probably practice more tomorrow morning, just in time for the next Junior Woodchuck meeting. 

“Mmm?” Donald hummed, staying focused on his work. 

“Did mom get angry too? Like you do?”

For a moment Huey thought Donald wouldn’t say anything. He stared at Huey, blinking slowly, and then closing his eyes, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. 

“Not like I do. Della’s anger was different.” His Uncle’s voice was quiet, soft, in a way that it very rarely was, and Huey found himself leaning forward. “She wasn’t explosive like I am. It took a lot to get her riled up like that. Except for me. It seemed like half the time we were yelling at each other.” A small smile tugged at the very edges of Uncle Donald’s bill. “When you boys fight, it always reminds me of her. Makes it hard to break you guys up.”

“Oh.” Huey said, not knowing what else there was to say. He could remember one time when he and Dewey had been bickering and their Uncle had walked in and just stood in the doorway for a moment before saying anything. 

“I was hoping it’d skip a generation, but I think it rarely does.” Donald continued. His eyes were still closed, head tilted to the side, brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. “I’ve had the worst case of it in generations, but everybody has it to some degree. Uncle S-... My uncle had it, Della had it, and it looks like you have it.” 

“Did your parents have it?... and what’s ‘it’?” 

“My uncle and mom used to call it the ‘Black Anger’, named after the first in our family line to have it.” Donald supplied. He leaned forward again, opening his eyes after rubbing his hand down his face. “C’mon, we should both be getting to bed.”

Huey followed his uncle into the houseboat, not asking about the unanswered question, knowing he was already lucky to have gotten as much information about their family as he did today. Before Huey entered his room, Donald knelt down and kissed his forehead like he used to. All three of the boys had made it clear they no longer wanted him to do that, but Huey was too tired to make a fuss. 

“If your anger starts to become a problem, you know you can talk to me, right?” Uncle Donald said, and Huey nodded. 

The other two triplets were unsurprisingly asleep, though it would’ve been equally unsurprising if there were still awake too. Huey, despite practically hearing his pillow calling to him, held off a little longer as he pulled out his notebook. He flipped to the rough family tree he had hidden in the middle, adding his ‘Great Uncle S’ next to the unnamed Grandma and making little black x’s next to all of relatives Uncle Donald had mentioned having had the anger, putting one next to his as well after a moment’s hesitation.

In the morning he’d share what he learned with his brothers, but for tonight this new and precious information was his alone.


	2. -- --- .-. ... .

Oddly enough, the idea came from Dewey. 

“Guys, check this out.” He said, practically vibrating with excitement. They were on the school bus, waiting for the stop that got closest to the docks. They were sitting in their usual spot, the very back of the bus with the singular long seat and the only one that could fit all three of them comfortably. 

“Are you going to try and burp the alphabet again?” Huey sighed, lifting his head out of his Junior Woodchuck guidebook.

“I’m jumping out of this bus if you do.” Louie warned. Dewey shook his head, grinning.

“No, I’ve accepted I’ll never be able to outdo Al. Okay, just, watch.” 

Dewey blinked. Three quick blinks, followed by three more with space between them, and then three more quick blinks. He looked incredibly proud of himself for this.

“S.O.S?” Huey raised his eyebrows. 

“Whoa, how’d you know that?” Dewey stared at his brother in shock and Huey flipped a few pages in his book, showing some pages to them.

“I had to learn it for my Emergency Preparedness badge.” Huey explained. “If you were still in Junior Woodchucks, we could’ve learned it together.”

“Morse code, right?” Louie said after a yawn, wondering if the two were going to go all-out bickering on this one. Dewey had quit Junior Woodchucks shortly after he’d joined, which had giving Huey emotional whiplash from the excitement of having his brother join him to being - in his eyes - abandoned, and though it had happened a year ago, Huey every-so-often tried to convince Dewey to come back. Or just whined about Dewey being gone. 

Huey tapped on his book dash-dot-dash-dash dot dot-dot-dot.

“Yeah, that means nothing to me.” Louie gave another yawn. He was sitting sideways on the seat, head leaning against the window and feet tucked up in front of him between himself and his brothers. 

“It means ‘yes’.” Huey corrected. “On top of my Emergency Preparedness badge, I went ahead and got my Telegram Interpreter badge. Don’t you guys remember when I kept tapping out morse code on everything?”

“I just thought it was a new nervous tick or something.” Louie said with a shrug.

“I thought you were on drugs and was ready to go all Dew-tective on you.” Dewey said. “Dude, why didn’t you tell us and teach us?”

“You guys aren’t usually interested in my Junior Woodchuck stuff, I didn’t think you’d be interested in this one.” Huey replied simply, and then added, “Why are you suddenly interested in this one?”

“So I saw it in a movie once- AND,” Dewey said, quickly adding the ‘and’ as his brother nodded at the ‘movie’ part and were already looking like they were losing interest, “Think about all the possibilities. I mean, Huey how many people in our class do you think have the telegraph badge.”

“Telegram, and… probably just me? Which is a shame because it was actually really interested learning about-“ 

“Which means that you’re the only person in the class you knows what all those taps mean, right?” Dewey forged onwards. Understanding started to dawn in Louie and Huey’s eyes, a mischievous glint sparking in their midst. 

“Unless I teach you guys.” Huey was starting to grin now too, and Louie had that smirk on his face. 

“We could talk about people right in front of them.” Louie mused.

“We could do our planning right in front of Uncle Donald without him even knowing! Oh we’re totally taking the houseboat for a spin!” Dewey cheered.

oOo

Learning morse code was a slower process than either the blue or green triplet would’ve liked. Several opportunities when Donald had to hire a babysitter for them were missed as they hadn’t been able to get any plan finished. In fact, all plans were currently put on hold as they focused on what was important: learning a cool language only they’d be able to understand. Okay, so maybe not a language, more like a code, but the point and the excitement still stood.

On the bright side, the babysitter being over was the perfect time to practice, as they didn’t want to be going over ‘this is 'A'’ right in front of their Uncle incase he started to learn along with them. They were also careful about where Huey taught it to them at school, going off in their own little group a good distance from everybody else. Nobody really questioned it, the triplets always known to often prefer spending time with each other, and their lessons were only interrupted on occasion when their other vague friends came over wanting one of them to join in a game or something. Louie picked it up faster than Dewey. A class taught but his brother was still a class and getting Dewey to focus for more than five minutes was an uphill battle on all sides.

They did feel perhaps a bit guilty when Donald had noticed their lack of shenanigans of late and made a comment about it. He said he was proud of them, if a bit worried, and had asked if things were okay. They had all replied easily ‘of course, Uncle Donald’ and their uncle had smiled at them, and ruffled the feathers on their head, and then squawked at realizing he was going to be late for work and rushed out the door just as the babysitter arrived. Still, it wasn’t too long before they could interpret taps and blinks and flashes into letters and words and sentences with minimal errors. When Dewey had finally managed to understand an entire sentence they’d all cheered, whooping and hollering - which got them in trouble with the teacher as she was in the middle of a math lesson they were supposed to be paying attention to.

And now that they had that down, it was time to get back to planning, an activity all three of them had sorely missed and were well behind on.

Uncle Donald stood at the stove, the distinct sizzling sound and smell of ground beef filling the houseboat. He was humming more to himself than to the boys, as he usually did whenever he was, well, doing almost anything. He rarely put lyrics to the tunes, but the young ducks had all become familiar with their uncle’s usual melodies. He used to have an accordion when they were younger, but one day it’d disappeared and though they never asked, they all knew it had been sold for that years school supplies. 

It was the perfect opportunity. 

Louie went ahead and started it, each half-beat of the song equaling a dot and three of those making up a dash. 

_ ‘-.-- --- ..- / --. ..- -.-- ... / --. . - - .. -. --. / - .... .. ... ..--..’ _

_ ‘You guys getting this?’ _

Uncle Donald paused for a moment in his humming, head tilted to the side as he rummaged through a cupboard and pulled out a saucepan and a slightly mismatched but usable lid for it. Having found what he was looking for, the humming continued right where it had left off in the song, every-so-often accompanied by bits and pieces of lyrics that the boys had no hope of figuring out. 

_ ‘-.-- . …’ ‘Yes.’  _ Huey tapped back. 

_ ‘.-.. --- ..- -.. / .- -. -.. / -.-. .-.. . .- .-. .-.-.-’ ‘Loud and clear.’  _ Dewey looked incredibly proud of himself for this feat. If Uncle Donald noticed the extra tapping accompanying his music, he made no reaction as he prepared mashed potatoes. 

Louie stifled a snicker looking between their uncle and Dewey tapping a reply to Huey’s question about what day would be best. Donald continued to hum on, oblivious. And they’d go out with the boat and be back before their Uncle even knew they were gone. How hard could driving a boat really be if their Uncle could do it? 

When dinner was in the oven the planning was once again put on hold as Uncle Donald took his spot at the table. He was sewing up a shirt again. This time it was Dewey from when he’d been climbing a tree and fallen. He hadn’t broken anything, but his shirt had caught on a limb and come away with a huge tear in it. It was probably to the point of no return and would be better put to use completely torn up and made into rags, but Uncle Donald was attempting to salvage it anyway. 

Louie looked back down at his homework and the textbook propped open on the table. History tonight, the history of Duckburg. Scrooge McDuck, the possibly immortal duck who lived on Killmotor for just about as long as anybody could remember. He probably never had to worry about sewing up a shirt. He could probably wear a new shirt every day. Maybe when they were taking the houseboat for a spin, they’d run into a secret island or something with priceless jewels. Louie didn’t dare voice the dream to his brothers. It sounded dumb even in his own mind. But still, there were so many legends and myths about the richest duck in the world. If even half of them were true, then maybe such miraculous and easy ways to get rich and solve their problems really were possible. 

He wondered if Huey and Dewey had secret things they hoped to find on the outing. They were all aware of the money issues Uncle Donald struggled with. Huey probably wanted to discover some new species of fish or map a never-seen island to get his cartographer badge or something. Dewey was probably just hoping it’d be an adventure, and that they’d almost die doing daring and dangerous tasks. They weren’t hard guesses to make, and were likely pretty accurate. Louie knew his brothers better than anybody.

Uncle Donald herded them off to bed. He wouldn’t be able to see them off to school tomorrow, he reminded them. He had an early shift. But he’d be there when they got home. 

“Goodnight Uncle Donald.” They said one at a time, Louie finishing them off. He knocked the it into the side of his bed.  _ ‘--. --- --- -.. -. .. --. .... - / ..- -. -.-. .-.. . / -.. --- -. .- .-.. -.. .-.-.-’.  _ Uncle Donald stood in the doorway until it was done. 

“Thinking about being a drummer there, Louie?” He joked and closed the door and Louie did his best to pretend that the direct recognition didn’t matter to him as much as it really did. 

They ironed out the date they wanted to ‘borrow’ the boat on. Uncle Donald was usually gone on that day every year, rarely working and always leaving them with a babysitter. It was the perfect day. 

oOo

The triplets rushed home in the best moods they’d been in all week. First of all, it’s a Friday which meant they got out of school early. Second of all, it was the day that they were going to head out on the open seas, into the unknown. 

“Okay, let’s go over the plan one more time.” Huey pulled the paper out of his Junior Woodchuck guidebook, tucked into the section about how to hotwire a car. “Dewey, what’s your job?”

“Toss all the milk off the boat and convince the babysitter to go buy some more.” Dewey dutifully recited. 

“Louie?”

“Untie the boat, shove us off as soon as the babysitter leaves and make sure she doesn’t get back on. Steal her phone if possible so she can’t warn Uncle Donald.” Louie wiggled his fingers. He’d been getting pretty good at pickpocketing, and though Huey made it clear he didn’t think it was a good thing, he also made no action to stop Louie and, like now, put the skill into a plan.

“And I’ll work on hotwiring the boat - which I wouldn’t have to do if somebody had managed to steal the keys before Uncle Donald left this morning.” Huey said and Louie rolled his eyes.

“I still have no idea how you expected me to steal only one key from his keyring without him noticing. Anyway, isn’t there some ‘Hotwire A Boat To Steal From Your Uncle’ badge that you need?” Louie said rather pointedly. Huey didn’t answer, just stuck his tongue out, which Louie took to mean that it was an actual badge that Huey was going to try and get today. 

“Mrs. Beakerson, we’re home!” Huey called out to their normal babysitter as they got on the boat and opened the door. 

Mrs. Beakerson, however, wasn’t there. 

Uncle Donald was.

He was sitting at the dinner table, arms folded. Sitting on the table was a small bouquet and a picnic basket. Their uncle was wearing casual clothes, but the kind that he very rarely wore. A simple black shirt and a dark blue plaid button-up. These days he usually was wearing some uniform or other for work, and when he wasn’t he was either wearing an old uniform he no longer had to wear and now counted as casual clothes or a blue sailor uniform that he’d had, as far as the boys could tell, since forever. It was a bit jarring to see him in something even more casual.

“Oh, uh, Uncle Donald. Weren’t you, uh, you had that, that thing,” Louie said, snapping his fingers like he was trying to think of what that something was despite having no idea what Uncle Donald was supposed to be doing today. Uncle Donald leveled him with a look that said he was not impressed. 

“Is Mrs. Beakerson okay? Is she sick and you had to stay?” Huey asked, doing a great show of looking more worried than he was surprised. Uncle Donald’s unimpressed look was now directed at the red triplet. He then sighed and stood up, arms still crossed, looking the boys over. 

“You know, Mrs. Beakerson probably would’ve asked me to pay her for the milk. And we have two gallons right now. Would you really want to throw them away? And throwing them into the bay? Isn’t there enough trash in there already?”

“Whaaat? Pfft, why would we throw milk away?” Dewey flapped his hand like he was trying to slap Donald’s accusation out of the air. Uncle Donald unfolded his arms and rapped his knuckles on the table. 

‘-... --- -.-- ... --..-- / .. / -.- -. --- .-- .-.-.-‘

Realization dawned on the triplets with the force of an avalanche.

_ ‘Boys, I know.’ _

“You know morse code?!” Huey spoke first, book falling out of his hands and looking a mixture of excited and shocked. 

“I learned all of that for nothing?!” Dewey wailed, absolutely devastated at this turn of events. 

“Since when do you know morse code? _Why_ do you know morse code?” Louie was on the same page as Huey, squinting at his uncle. 

“I was a Junior Woodchuck once,” Uncle Donald pointed out, “And it’s come in handy a few times. I should’ve known you were up to something.”

All three of the boys suddenly became rather interested in their feet, avoiding the ‘not mad, just disappointed’ look they were getting. Not that it helped much, they could still feel it burning into the tops of their heads. 

“Full proof plan, huh?” Louie mumbled, elbowing Dewey.

“Shut up.” Dewey elbowed Louie back. Louie elbowed Dewey again and Dewey raised a hand to start some real action, but was abruptly interrupted by Donald. 

“Boys,” He said sharply, subduing the fight before it could begin. Uncle Donald sighed again, shaking his head, “If I can’t trust you here, you’ll just have to come with me. Will one of you grab the basket?” 

The duty, as usual, fell the Huey, who grabbed the basket’s handle almost numbly, shocked by this sudden turn of events. 

“Wait, where are we going?” Dewey asked. Donald didn’t give an answer, grabbing the bouquet from the table and, with a gesture for the boys to follow him, left the houseboat, locking it up behind him. 

They walked through the streets of town. It was the middle of the day, and there were people on their way to and form lunch everywhere, standing outside the coffee shop for something to get them through the rest of the day, laughing with friends at a table outside of a café with half-eaten sandwiches sitting on white plates. Uncle Donald payed them no mind, but the boys stared at the mouth-watering food. They so rarely ate out. At one point Dewey tried to sneak a peak at what was in the picnic basket but Huey had jerked it away, hissing that they were probably already on thin ice as it was. 

Their destination was a place they had known of, but had never been to themselves before. Afterall, it wasn’t exactly the place one went on field trips or something. The old iron fence was finally polished, gleaming in the sunlight despite the years it had stood there. It became at arch at the opening, two large gate doors open and twin dark crescents in the concrete where the metal had to slide against in while opening or closing. At the height of the arch, the metal formed the words ‘Duckburg Cemetery’. 

“He’s gonna kill us.” Louie deadpanned. Huey huffed.

“We’re at a  _ cemetery,  _ show some respect.” He then hurried to catch up to Uncle Donald, who unlike the triplets did not pause at the gates and had gone forward without hesitation. 

He had already set down a few of the flowers when they caught up to him. The first grave was a couples grave with the names Goostave and Daphne Gander in a curly font on the tombstone, one of Uncle Donald’s flowers resting on top of it. The grass in front of the grave wasn’t really grass at all, but clovers. Next to it sat two more graves, each now bearing one of the flowers Uncle Donald had brought, had little tiny flowers growing near the tombstones. One bore the name Lulabelle Duck, while the other the name Eider Duck. 

Donald had stopped at the next grave, another couples grave, setting the rest of the bouquet there. A finger tapped out ‘I miss you’ on the gravestone, and Louie found himself wondering how many little messages they’d never known their Uncle made. Hortense and Quackmore Duck were carved into the stone, and the triplets could do little more than stare. The lack of grandparents in their life had just gone along with everything else that was missing, they had never truly considered what that would mean, though the lack of surprise of realizing who these must be surely meant that some part of them had suspected all along. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Uncle Donald said out loud, kneeling in front of the grave, “But I brought your grandsons along this time.” 

The plans for the day suddenly feel foolish and trivial. They stand there respectfully for a moment but it wasn’t long until Dewey became fidgety. Uncle Donald took the basket from Huey’s hands and pulled out a sandwich for each of them, telling them they were welcome to walk around. He wouldn’t take long today, he promised. He just needed a moment. Huey was trying to fill in more of his rough family tree and then started walking down the rows. Dewey ran off to a big tree and the tables more made for visitors, hoping to find something cool. 

Louie didn’t move, staring at the names, staring at the date, today’s date but years in the past. Uncle Donald didn’t make him move. 

“How’d they die?” Louie asked after a long time. Too long of a time. 

“Car crash.” Uncle Donald replied simply. It didn’t sound like it hurt to say, like it hurt to think about. “My mom died at the scene, but my dad made it to the hospital. They got him stable for a short time, just long enough for Della and I to see him. He couldn’t talk. He was barely conscious. But he took my hand…”

Louie looked at Uncle Donald’s hand, a finger tapping the palm of the other. Dash-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dash-dot dot-dash dot-dash-dot-dot dash-do-do. 

“Donald.” Louie translated. Uncle Donald nodded. 

“His last word to me. I remembered the pattern for years. It wasn’t until I was older, though, that I learned morse code.” He replayed the name into his hand again and again. Louie sat down next to his uncle and wondered what it must be like, to lose someone you know and love. His uncle draped an arm around him, held him close, and tapped his arm. Louie, Louie, Louie, over and over again. 

They stayed for an hour, and Louie wondered what Uncle Donald did that could possibly last a whole day. No way he just sat there staring at tombstones once every year. As they left, Dewey looked behind them and then pulled at Uncle Donald’s sleeve forcing him to stop.

“Check it out, it’s Scrooge McDuck!”

All three boys stared at the richest duck as he exited a black limo, cane and tophat like every picture of him always had. They watched him enter the cemetery. Uncle Donald turned around and ushered them onward. 


	3. Dew in the Water

“We finally get to do something fun, and he makes us wait  _ inside the boat?!”  _ Dewey whined, kicking his feet back and forth while sitting at the table. Huey was looking out of one of the windows, watching the water slicing by the side of the boat. Louie was lying on the couch, barely awake when Uncle Donald had told them what was going on today and now had returned to the realm of sleep.

“At least it beats being babysat.” Huey said. 

“Barely.” Dewey huffed. He crossed his arms and glared towards the front of the boat, hoping Uncle Donald could somehow know he was glaring at him through the wall.

Over the years, the boys had come to realize that their boat was a really really weird boat. Uncle Donald had explained that he’d had it for a while, which made sense and was relievable. What didn’t make sense was the never-explained how Uncle Donald  _ got _ a boat like this. For all they called it a houseboat, it wasn’t really a houseboat. Most houseboats, as far as they could tell, couldn’t handle handle being out on the actual ocean. In fact, when Huey had found that out when he was younger and then heard the Uncle Donald was going to go out he’d wailed and cried and held onto his uncle’s legs, begging him not to go and die out there. Uncle Donald had laughed and patted Huey’s head, peeling the little duckling off and reassuring him that the houseboat would be fine, it’d survived storms before and it was going to be a clear day. 

“We’re not even outside! Why do we have to wear our lifejackets?” Dewey continued to complain, slumping further and further down in his seat until he wasn’t even in it anymore but rather on the floor of the boat. “Why couldn’t he have just left us with Mrs. Beakerson? At least then we could’ve tried to sneak out of her apartment.” Dewey grumbled, attempting to fold his arms but the bulk of the lifejacket making it so the best he could do was intertwine his fingers.

“At least he doesn’t make us wear them constantly.” Huey attempted to improve his brother’s mood to no avail. 

“And we shouldn’t have to now! We grew up in the bay on a boat! I’m pretty sure I can swim better than I can walk.” Dewey struggled to sit back up. 

“It shows.” Louie mumbled from the couch. He’d taken off his lifejacket early on and was using it like an extra pillow/cushion. Dewey stuck his tongue out at his brother, finally having managed to get back to his feet, and clawed at the front of the life jacket. Eventually he managed to grab the clips enough to squeeze them and free himself from the neon orange straight jacket. 

“Yes! Freedom! Nothing can hold back Dewey Duck!” He threw his fists into the air victoriously – just as the ship came to an abrupt stop and he was thrown across the room, hitting the side of the couch with an ‘oof’ and rubbing his back, which had taken the brunt of the damage. Louie looked down at him.

“Maybe if you were wearing a lifejacket you’d be fine.” He teased and Dewey slapped Louie’s leg. 

“Hey, you’re not wearing yours either! And real adventurers don’t wear lifejackets. They tackle the unknown with only the clothes on their back, trusting their gut and also maybe a grappling hook!” Dewey jumped back to his feet, standing in the most heroic pose he could and smiling smugly. 

“Aren’t you a bit excited to find out what Uncle Donald does when he takes the houseboat out?” Huey came over, still in his lifejacket though he didn’t seem anymore happy about it than the other two. Every few months, Uncle Donald would leave them with somebody – usually Mrs. Beakerson – and drive out into the ocean. They’d asked him about it before – where he went and why they couldn’t come along – and Uncle Donald had said that he’d just be worried if they were on the boat too, and that he just needed the time to himself. Of course, none of them believed it. 

But now that they were actually here, actually on one of these outings, Dewey had suddenly decided that it was the most boring thing in the world and the biggest waste of time he’d ever seen. 

“I’d be more excited if this were a real adventure.” Dewey pouted. 

The door to the house part of the boat opened and Uncle Donald come in. He wasn’t wearing a lifejacket, Dewey noted bitterly and gave his uncle a sour look. 

“Alright, you boys can co- Dewey! Louie! Put your lifejackets back on!” He squawked, and then didn’t give them the chance to do so as he grabbed the two abandoned lifejackets and shoved them back onto Dewey and Louie. 

“Uncle Dooooonaaaaald-” Dewey started to whine, but Uncle Donald put his hands on his hips and shook his head. 

“We are miles from land, you are wearing a lifejacket or you’re staying in the house.” He said, leaving no room for debate. Dewey gave a dramatic sigh and rolled his eyes but trailed after the rest of his family as they went out to the deck of the ship. 

“Great, the middle of nowhere. Great.” Dewey said bitterly.

“My expectations were pretty low, but I guess I should've known better. It is Uncle Donald.” Louie whispered and Huey hummed his agreement. 

Their uncle was at the back of the boat, his legs dangling off the edge and only his feet in the water. His eyes were closed, and he was leaning back and taking deep breaths of the salty air. 

“Just when I thought he couldn’t get lamer.” Dewey huffed to himself, and then louder so Uncle Donald could hear, “Can we at least get in the water?”

His uncle made some squawking sounds that might’ve been words, it was so hard to tell with him some days. But by the shaking of his head and his arms waving in front of him back and forth, it was probably just a lot of different ways to say ‘no, Dewey, no fun can be allowed and you’re better off just going inside and doing homework or something’. Seeming to believe his point had gotten across, Donald resumed his position of feet in water relaxing. 

“Well, I’m going back to napping.” Louie declared, going back inside the houseboat. Huey was looking at his Junior Woodchuck guide, an impressive feat considering what limited movement the lifejacket gave. If he wasn’t working on a badge, then he was probably going to find one that he could. 

“This is dumb.” Dewey mumbled, falling backwards, his landing well cushion by the stupid lifejacket. “We came all the way out here to do nothing? This is stupid.” He wriggled around in the lifejacket for a bit and looked back at Uncle Donald. His eyes were still closed and he looked like he was a world away. Louie was inside. Huey was distracted. A grin began to spread across his face. 

He continued squirming until he had managed to get out of the lifejacket and then looked around, making sure that nobody had noticed he’d taken it off. He wasn’t really wearing swimming attire, but who cared? Certainly not him. Adventuring with the clothes on his back. Sure he was missing the grappling hook but one had to start somewhere, right? 

“Whoo!” Dewey cheered, taking a running start and jumping off the back of the boat, right past Uncle Donald and landing in the water. Uncle Donald was making upset and completely unintelligible sounds, standing and looking both surprised and angry. Huey and Louie ran over, crowding next to Uncle Donald and staring out at Dewey.

“Get back in the boat right now!” The garbled voice of Uncle Donald finally formed words, but Dewey ignored him. 

“Come on in, the water’s fine!” Dewey splashed around. 

“We did come all the way out here…” Huey trailed off, looking hopefully up at his uncle. 

“No, it’s too dangerous  _ especially without a lifejacket on.”  _ And oh, that was basically a growl coming from Uncle Donald. Now Dewey didn’t want to get out of the water seeing as he was farther from his uncle’s famous temper out here.

“Why do you even come out here if you won’t even get in the water? How is this any different from the marina?” Dewey demanded. Uncle Donald rubbed his hands down his face.

“This is why I never bring you kids along.” He grumbled just loud enough that Dewey could hear. “Get back in the boat, Dewey.” 

“No, you can’t make me.” Dewey dove down into the water to avoid hearing another bout of angry quacking.

And then didn’t come back up to the surface. 

In fact, it kind of felt like he was sinking. 

Dewey kicked his legs, but only one of them kicked. The other felt like there was something wrapped around his ankle. He looked down and swore he could see something kind of dark and purpley. He kicked his leg again but whatever it was held on tight. That was about the time that panic started to set in. He kicked his legs some more but to no avail. His lungs were starting to burn, he hadn’t taken a deep enough breath for being down this long.

Something crashed into the water above him, the sound filling his senses. There was a blur of bubbles and white feathers and light blue. Strong arm wrapped around his stomach and Dewey immediately latched onto his savior. The thing around his ankle let go and powerful strokes brought them back to the surface. Dewey coughed up seawater that had gotten into his mouth and up his nose and pressed his face into the shirt of his uncle, eyes burning from the salt. 

He was set down on the familiar creaky floor of the houseboat, solid and reliable beneath him. His fingers were pried off of Uncle Donald’s shirt and when he opened his eyes for a split second he could see his uncle's face was red with rage. His brothers crowded around him, Huey giving orders to Louie about what to do, probably looking them up in his Junior Woodchuck guide. A towel was thrown over him and he quickly wiped at his eyes. 

There was another splash. 

Dewey sat up. Uncle Donald was nowhere to be seen.

“Are you okay?” Huey asked, rubbing Dewey back. 

“Y-yeah,” He said not at all convincingly.

Uncle Donald climbed out of the water, dripping wet and chest moving with breath deep breaths, still looking absolutely furious.

“Uncle Donald-” Dewey started but was cut off by the look he got. 

“Get back in the boat. We’re going home.” 

They climbed into the houseboat, Dewey bundled up in his towel and feeling miserable. He went straight to their room, picking out some dry clothes, and Huey and Louie trailed after him.

“What happened?” They both looked worried and Dewey couldn’t deny that they had the right to be. 

“Something grabbed my ankle. I think it was an octopus or something?” He looked down at his ankle, which gave no hint as to what had grabbed him. 

“You should’ve seen Uncle Donald’s face when you didn’t come up. He looked like he was the one drowning.” Louie oh so helpfully said. Dewey pulled on the new shirt and collapsed backwards on the bottom bunk, absolutely exhausted. 

“He’s gonna kill me.” He groaned, rolling onto his side. 

“Better you than us.” Louie said and got elbowed in the stomach by Huey.

“You’ll probably be grounded.” Huey corrected.

“Great, because I wasn’t bored enough on this boat already.” Dewey wrapped himself thoroughly in the blanket. 

He ended up falling asleep on the ride back home, and when he woke up the sun was setting. He yawned and ate a sandwich off a plate that Huey must’ve left for him. His feathers were sticking up all weird since he’d slept on them while they were wet, but there was nothing much he could do about them and it wasn’t like anybody but his family was going to see him. Carefully and slowly, he edged out of the room and into the main living area. Huey and Louie were sitting at the table, Huey writing something down and Louie staring at his phone. Dewey kept his back to the wall, looking out for Uncle Donald, and then darted to hide under the table. 

“Where is he?” Dewey whispered

“He went for a walk to clear his head.” Huey said. “He was pretty mad.”

“I just wanted a little adventure! Is that too much to ask for? How was I supposed to now there was a murderous squid that wanted to eat me?”

“I thought you said it was an octopus.” Louie sounded like he was only half-heartedly trying to participate in the conversation.

“Octopus, squid, I don’t know! Something with tentacles.” 

“Actually, octopuses don’t have tentacles. What we think of as tentacles are actually considered their arms.” Huey said and Dewey kicked at his brother’s foot, and then got kicked in side. 

“Whatever.” He grumbled, crawling out from under the table. “Well, I’m going for a walk too then.”

“Okay, now I think he’s going to kill you.” Huey made no effort to stop Dewey from walking out of the boat. The deck looked just as it had that afternoon. Same boring old houseboat. 

“Stupid uncle.” Huey crossed his arms and glared down at the water between the deck and the boat - and then remembered what it was like to not be able to get out of the water and took a few steps back. 

No, he was being ridiculous. He was raised on this boat, on this marina, by the water. He stepped back to the edge… and then quickly hopped to the deck, landing flat on his stomach, eyes squeezed shut. Nice solid wood. 

“Dewey?” 

The duck’s eyes snapped open again at Uncle Donald’s voice. Crap, he was back already? Then again, Dewey had no idea how long he’d been gone for. Had he been out since they’d gotten back?

“Uh, nothing!” Dewey shouted and ran down the deck, putting distance between him and his uncle.

“Dewey, we need to talk!” 

“No we don’t!” 

They raced down the marina, Uncle Donald hot on Dewey’s tail. Alright, just get to the furthest dock, then jump into the water and swim to the shore, run away into the streets of Duckburg, get adopted by Scrooge McDuck, change name to Dew Mcduck-

All the planning came to a stop when Dewey hit the end of the dock and his legs gave out at the mere thought of getting in the water. 

“This is so stupid!” He shouted, banging a fist on the wood. 

“Dewey?” Uncle Donald had stopped running and approached slower. Dewey drew his legs up close to his chest. 

“It’s just water. I’m a great swimmer. So why am I so scared all of a sudden?"

Uncle Donald sat down next to him, legs dangling off the edge and the tips of his webbed feet dipping into the water. 

“Your first time almost drowning does that.” Uncle Donald was staring down at the water, but Dewey was staring at him. 

“You’ve almost drowned before too?”

“A few times.” He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. 

“Is that why you never swim when we go to the beach?” Uncle Donald shook his head. 

“No, I just like relaxing at the beach. I’ve had to swim a lot. Through ocean water, through freezing waters, in boiling water…”

“Since when did you do that? And since when are you such a... strong swimmer.” Dewey remembered his uncle's arms around him, seeming to almost effortlessly cut through the water. His uncle just shrugged.

“Years ago. But drowning makes you sacred. I know that. I’ve been there. It’ll get better, though, with time. Now about what happened today-”

“We never do anything fun!” Dewey said quickly before his uncle could go on. “Why can’t we ever do anything fun? And how was I supposed to know there was an octopus that had it out for me? That’s never happened before.”

“The sea is different than the shore. It’s dangerous. It has, uh, octopuses that might try and drag you down. That’s why I never take you boys out there. But maybe you’re right. Next week… would you want to go to Funzo’s?”

“Wait, really?” Dewey perked up, hope shining in his eyes, and Uncle Donald nodded. And then his face twisted and shook his head. 

“Well, maybe not next week. You’re grounded all of next week.”

“What?!” 


	4. We're Lost In The Woods And We're Somewhere In New Jersey

“You know, we’ve had some dumb ideas in our time.”

“Oh definitely.”

“That goes without saying.” 

“But… I do think this one is pretty far up there.” Louie said, leaning against a tree. Dewey was sitting on one of the lower branches, tearing apart a pinecone bit by bit. Huey was up far higher in the tree, standing on some precariously thin branches and looking out at the tops of the trees. Louie craned his head back to look at his brother, harder to pick out than usual seeing as he was in his Junior Woodchuck uniform. “You see anything?”

“No.” Huey admitted reluctantly. “I guess they had the sense to put the fire out. Under normal conditions, I would be proud of my fellow troupe members.”

“But right now you want to strangle them.” Dewey guessed, tossing his pinecone to the ground and swinging backwards on his branch, hanging upside down. A few seconds later he fell into some bushes and Louie huffed a laugh. 

“Well, if worst comes to worst we can just eat Dewey.” Louie snarked. 

“No. We have everything we need to know about surviving in the woods right here if worst comes to worst.” Huey said, jumping precariously back down the tree while waving the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook about.

“Because it’s been such a help so far?” Dewey crawled out of the bush, pulling broken-off twigs out of his feathers.

“Well, uh,” Huey looked away, holding his book closely.

“Not that we’ve been helpful with that.” Louie ceded, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pocket. 

“So, what next? Try looking for bigfoot again or try finding the camp again?” Dewey asked as Huey finally reached the ground. The red triplet set to pulling some of the remaining twigs from the back of Dewey’s head and after a moment Louie did the same for Huey.

“I think we’re well past looking for bigfoot. We could just stay put and hope the troop start a fire eventually and we can just track the smoke…” Huey trailed off, staring intently at his book like it held all the answers. It did a surprising amount of the time, but it seemed the book had finally run out of magic or whatever it was made out of.

“We’ve tried that.” Louie sighed. “I’m convinced if we sit still for more than five minutes, Dewey’s going to find a way to kill himself by going stir crazy.”

“I’m not even going to deny that one.” Dewey nodded. “Can’t you guys just smell the adventure out there? And you want to sit in one place? Think about it! Scroo-“

“Yeah yeah, Scrooge McDuck blah blah blah. We’d all love to be rich, especially me, but right now Dewey we’re just lost.” Louie rolled his eyes.

“So we’ll just… keep going I guess? But what if we end up farther from the troop?” Huey fretted

“Then we’ll hit a road or something. Anything’s better than here. You know, this whole thing could’ve had an easy solution.” Louie gave the woods a distasteful look that was meant for Uncle Donald, back at the camp with the rest of the troop and their families that had come along.

“Are you ever going to stop being bitter that Uncle Donald made you leave your phone on the houseboat?” Dewey raised an eyebrow. 

“Nope. Never.” Louie sniffed and turned his head to the side before walking off in a direction. “Let’s get going.”

It was still dark out, still a chill in the night air. The triplets had brought one blanket and it was shoved to whoever was shivering the most at the time. They hadn’t planned to be out this long, to be lost in the woods at this time of night. But maybe bigfoot didn’t live in these woods, or they were just unlucky and not as good at tracking mythical beasts as they had thought they’d be when they’d headed out, since they hadn’t seen so much as a footprint.

“Have we seen this tree before?” Dewey asked, squinting at one of the trees in the darkness.

“... maybe?” Louie stared at the tree too. “Ugh, they all look the same. Huey!”

“I don’t think we’ve seen it before?” Huey ran a hand over the tree's bark. “It does kind of feel like we’ve been walking in circles… I’m going to mark this tree, that way we know for sure.” 

“Ugh, like marking your territory?” Dewey’s nose wrinkled.

“You need to stop reading those weird cat books. No, Dewey, I’m going to do this.” Huey grabbed two sticks and stuck them into the ground so that they made an ‘X’ shape. “There, simple and easy.”

“We should’ve been doing this an hour ago.” Louie grumbled while shoving the blanket onto Huey. 

“Well now’s better than never, right? And it’s not like we planned to get lost.” Huey added the last part bitterly and wrapped himself thoroughly in the blanket. 

“If we die out here I’m leaving everything I own to Stumpy.” Dewey proclaimed. Stumpy was the one-legged seagull that had shown up sometimes last year and started nesting on the roof of the houseboat. It was the only seagull that could stand Uncle Donald’s tantrums and the boys had begged him to let it stay. Eventually he had relented, and now they had a sort-of-pet.

“I’m sure Stumpy will love the whole pillow and three empty notebooks.” Louie snorted.

“Hey! I have fine art in those notebooks, I’ll have you know!”

“You’re supposed to have school notes in them.” Huey pointed out.

“I don’t see why all three of us need to take separate noOOACK!”

Suddenly Dewey and Huey were no longer on the ground as it lifted up from underneath them. Or rather, some ropes lifted up, taking the two ducks with them and leaving them hanging from a tree. Dewey got a mouthful of the blanket as the two flailed around, trying and failing to get some kind of footing but managing to get upright. 

“... this isn’t one of ours, is it?” Dewey tugged at one of the ropes. “Or… maybe we’re really close to camp again! Haha, yes, good work team!”

“Mmm, I don’t think this is one of mine…” Huey twisted about, inspecting the trap. “Yeah, see there? There’s a gap where somebody forgot to tie one of the ropes to the other. I checked and double checked our nets.”

“At least we’re not the only bigfoot enthusiasts out here.” Louie’s hands were still in his jacket and he looked up at them calm and cooly, like he hadn’t yelped when the trap had been sprung and been terrified for a few heart-stopping seconds about what was going on. Huey crawled out of the gap left in the net, scaling down the side and then letting himself fall the rest of the way. Dewey followed suit but ended up trying to backflip off the net and landed face-first, earning him a scolding form Huey after he’d made sure the blue triplet hadn’t broken his beak.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be out here! The last thing we need if for you to break something!” Huey berated, tossing the blanket at him. Dewey stuck his tongue out. 

“You’re just jealous ‘cause I looked cooler than you.” 

They kept on walking, Huey setting up more of the X’s as they went like breadcrumbs behind them. Occasionally they would stop and Huey would look up at the stars and point out constellations. Louie was able to see what Huey was talking about, see the invisible lines between the stars, but to Dewey they were just little pinpricks of light in the distance. Inevitably they got back up and continued walking further into the woods, Huey every-so-often consulting his book but not being able to give them any solid help. 

“Oh no. No no no no!” 

Huey ran ahead, shouting ‘no’s as he went and leaving the other two to catch up to him and find him shouting ‘no’ at one of the X’s they had left behind. 

“So we just went in a big circle. Great.” Louie huffed. 

“Should we put another X down, that way we know we’ve been by here twice.” Dewey suggested. 

“Wait!” Huey shouted again, holding a palm out to his approaching brothers. “... do you guys see that?” 

“See what?” Louie raised an eyebrow, but stopped walking forward. Huey pulled one of the sticks making up the X out of the ground and stalked back towards the other two with careful and slow steps. He shoved the stick into a clump of leaves and then it was yanked upwards, out of his hands, a rope tightening around it. 

“Another trap.” Huey’s eyes narrowed. “This wasn’t here before. We would’ve noticed or walked into it like the last one.”

“Wait, you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?” Dewey looked giddy with excitement. 

“This trap wasn’t meant for bigfoot.” Louie jumped and grabbed the end of the stick, dragging it and the rope back down. “It was meant for us!”

“Now that’s an adventure! Dewey and his brothers against a faceless hunter looking to catch the most dangerous prey. Will they all survive with their lives or will one of them make the ultimate sacrifice for the others?” Dewey grinned.

“It won’t be a problem as long as we keep our eyes open - and it just means that there’s somebody else out here this late at night, not necessarily that they’re trying to catch us. Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll run into them and they can get us back to camp or at least out of these woods.” Huey said, but it did nothing to assuage the dawning fear in Louie’s eyes and the excitement in Dewey’s. “Can we at least agree to keep moving? Let’s see, we came from this direction and went that way last time… so let’s go this way?” 

“If it brings me farther from a crazed murderer psychopath I’m all for it.” Louie buried himself in the blanket. 

They made it maybe five yards before they sprung the other trap. 

“I’m too young to die!” Louie wailed, grabbing onto the net and shaking it. It was like the first one they had run across, only this one didn’t have a convenient gap to sneak through.

“Calm down, we’re not going to get out of this if you start freaking out on me!” Huey snapped.

“Yeah, Louie, we’re finally on a real adventure here! I mean, if Scrooge McDuck could-”

“Well he was prepared and also Scrooge McDuck when he did whatever you’re about to say!” Louie said sharply. “We’re just Ducks, and we’re lost, and it’s the middle of the night, and I’m getting hungry, and we’re going to die out here! We’re not Scrooge McDuck and we’re never going to rich and we’re going to live in the houseboat for the rest of our lives which ends tonight!”

“LOUIE!” Huey elbowed his brother sharply, the best he could do with the limited space. “We’re going to get out of here! We’re not going to die here, okay? We’re going to get out of here.” He promised, grabbing Louie’s shoulders and squeezing them maybe a bit too tightly before he set to trying to climb up the sides of the net. Louie was rather thoroughly swamped in the blanket, and now pulled it completely over his head so that he was hidden. Dewey grabbed one edge of it and slipped under too. 

“Louie?” Dewey couldn’t see very well under the blanket, but he could hear a small sniffle. 

“What?” Louie asked but didn’t rip the blanket off Dewey, which was probably a good sign. 

“You know what they say about Scrooge McDuck?” 

“That he’s the richest duck in the world? That he finds riches just to swim in them? That he’s an amazing adventurer that goes on way more life-threatening journeys than this?” Louie huffed. 

“And that doesn’t sounds super cool to you?” 

“It does!” Louie almost shouted but then got quiet again. “It does, but… we’re not Scrooge McDuck.”

“You know what else I’ve heard? I learned this when I was doing that biography project on him. He was poor when he was a kid! And we’re poor now. We could do that. Think about it, the three of us together could totally become three times the rich adventurer that Scrooge McDuck is! This is just our first really cool adventure. I bet something like this happened with Scrooge too.” Dewey assured Louie. 

“What if we get hurt though? What if we’re not as good as him and just end up like everybody else who failed where Scrooge McDuck didn’t?”

“That’s crazy! You’re right, we’re not McDucks, but we are Ducks! And someday that’s going to be way better.” Dewey promised, and Louie found himself believing him. Before he could say anything, though, something heavy landed on them. 

“Ugh, Huey!” Louie pushed at Huey, wiggling out from underneath both him and the blanket. 

“Sorry!” Huey did his best to get off his brothers. “I don’t recognize the knot that was used at the top of this net. And if I can’t figure that out, I don’t know how to untie it.” 

“Ooh, ooh, let me have a crack at it!” Dewey bounced up and down, rocking the net. 

“Shhh, guys shut up! Do you hear that?” Louie put his mouth over his brother’s beaks, staring down at the forest floor – and then pulled his hand back quickly when it was licked by Dewey. He glared at the blue duck but didn’t say anything, just wiping the slobber on Dewey’s face. Dewey looked ready to pounce, but Huey held him back.

“I hear it too.” He whispered. 

The sound of crunching leaves, of somebody else walking through the woods. 

“Okay, here’s the plan. Hopefully he doesn’t just shoot us right now-“

“He’s not going to shoot us!” Huey whisper shouted, interrupting Louie, but the green triplet soldiered onwards. 

“- and he’ll cut us down first. Dewey, you act as a distraction. Huey in the mean time will figure out how to untie this rope. I’ll use the Junior Woodchuck guidebook to hit the murderer over the head and knock him out. Then we tie him up and make a run for it. Sound good?” Dewey nodded vigorously and Huey shook his head with the same amount of passion. 

The crunching leaves got closer. All of the ducks became tense, ready to put their plan into action.

“Boys?”

“Uncle Donald?!”

It was hard to see him in the dark of the night, the forest floor made mostly of shadows, but the voice of their uncle was impossible to mistake. And sure enough, there he was, carrying his backpack, looking worried and relieved and not yet angry but that was sure to come. 

“Uncle Donald, you need to get us down from here!” Huey shouted. Their uncle nodded, climbing the tree with surprising ease and shimmying along the branch that the net and the boys hung from.

“I’m going to cut you down.” Uncle Donald quacked, and from where the triplets were watching they could just see something thin and metal that made quick work of the rope. The blanket was shoved to the bottom of the trap to help soften their fall, and Uncle Donald dropped down after them, landing in a crouch on the forest floor. Dewey was just able to get a brief glimpse of the pocket knife before it was put away - a wooden handle with ‘DD’ etched into it. 

“You found us!” Huey ran forward and hugged their uncle tightly around the middle, soon joined by the other two as they attempted to squeeze the life out of the duck. 

“We need to keep moving though!” Louie insisted, giving the woods a cautious look. “There’s somebody else out here setting traps, and we think they might be meant for us.” 

“It _ was _ meant for you.” Uncle Donald said, gently pushing his boys off and then setting his hands on his hips and there’s the anger and disappointment they’d been waiting for. “You go running off in the middle of the night, not even a letter left explaining where you’d gone, and didn’t think I’d march right out here after you?! What if something had happened do you, like the Beagle Boys kidnapping you, or sasquatch killing you?!”

“Like the beagle boys would kidnap us.” Dewey folded his arms. “And we were having fun out here!”

“If you were having fun, then why does Louie look like he was crying recently?” Uncle Donald countered and Louie furiously wiped at his eyes like that would help to hide the evidence. 

“Wait, Uncle Donald, back up… did you set up these traps?” Huey picked up a piece of the fallen net, looking it over. Uncle Donald looked away, folding his arms in front of him.

“I didn’t want to risk us walking circles around each other all night! And it looked like you guys were going to be heading in one big circle anyway.” 

“Did you… track us?” All three boys were staring at their uncle, who was resolutely not looking at any of them as he shrugged. 

“I was a Junior Woodchuck once.”

“But that knot you used isn’t in the Junior Woodchuck handbook!” Huey pointed out, taking his book back from Louie and flipping through it to the knot tying section. 

“It’s something I picked up somewhere. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you boys went out here and weren’t even prepared! Do you know how scared I was that I’d lose you boys.”

“Sorry Uncle Donald.” They chorused, looking at their feet. Uncle Donald sighed, and at first they thought it may be him preparing for a big rant, but instead he sat down on the forest floor and patted the ground next to him.

“C’mon, we can’t have this happen again. Huey should know the constellations, but you boys should too. You see the big dipper, right there? Follow it and you’ll find the little dipper and the north star…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can and will make Lighting Thief musical references if i want to
> 
> somewhere along the way this fic serious ended up also being a big of introspection of the the triplets, but you know what? I'm okay with that.


	5. All's Fair After Love And War

Huey wasn’t really sure when Dewey had also woken up.

He himself had been up past bedtime, with a Junior Woodchuck meeting coming up that wasn’t out of the ordinary. He reviewed the knowledge he’d accumulated, making sure he’d be able to pass off his new skills and knowledge and earn some new badges. He’d been huddled underneath his blanket, less because he thought Uncle Donald would notice the light and more because he hadn’t wanted to keep his brothers awake as his flashlight beamed across the pages.

There was a clang, loud and metallic and largely out of place in the calm and quiet night.

Huey threw off the blanket, flashlight sweeping away from his book and to the far wall as he sat still and listened. There was a second, softer thump. This one, however, had had the strength to start the houseboat rocking gently in the water. The third sound was metallic again, and Huey stuck his head over the edge of his bed. Louie was stirring, not quite awake yet but clearly reacting to the sound anyway. Dewey was nowhere to be seen. Huey sighed. Of course it was Dewey.

With much reluctance, he closed his book and more fell down the ladder than climbed, making his own muffled thump on the wooden floor. The door to their room was already open, despite Uncle Donald always shutting it after they’d all piled into their beds, and that simply added to the absolutely irrefutable evidence that Dewey had for whatever reason seen it fit to get up at this unholy hour of night and try waking the whole family – and no, the fact that Huey had already been wake did not help Dewey’s case.

Dewey was standing in the kitchen over a sizable pile of fallen pots and pans. Many of the cupboards were open, and Dewey was sitting on the counter surrounded by various ingredients, several of which Huey was fairly positive wouldn’t taste good together. He was also fairly positive that Dewey didn’t know how to cook anything that wasn’t beans, frozen pizza, and canned ravioli that they’d only ever seen Uncle Donald buy once and yet never seemed to fun out. Not that Huey was a masterchef. 

“Dewey-” Huey sighed.

“No, Huey, listen, I had the best idea.” Dewey held up two of the pans that were on the counter with him. They were both round and Huey recognized them right away. 

“Dewey, it’s,” Huey gave another sigh, glancing at the stove’s clock and eyebrows shooting up, “Oh wow, it’s 1 in the morning? I’ve been awake that long? Doesn’t matter. Dewey, it’s 1, why are you awake?”

“Because we have the perfect chance to butter up Uncle Donald! C’mon, this is a once in a year kind of thing here, Huey!” Dewey insisted, jumping down from the counter and shoving the pan at Huey. Huey could see where Dewey was going with this… it wasn’t a bad idea, really, just the worst time of day for it… or was it the perfect time of day for it…?

“Fine. But I’m the one messing with the oven, not you. You’ll burn the boat down.” 

“Oh, like you’re any better at using the oven? What about the Flaming Crab incident?” Dewey pointed out. 

“Shhh, shut up!” Huey grabbed Dewey’s beak and closed it. “Uncle Donald still doesn’t know about that!”

As if on cue, there was a shattering sound, sharp and piercing. Both Huey and Dewey winced, looking in the direction of the sound. Ah. Uncle Donald’s room. Or at least what passed as his room. It was too small for a bed, so he slept in a hammock or occasionally on the couch.

“Sorry Uncle Donald.” They both chorused, more out of habit than anything. There was no response, though. 

“Man, how asleep is he?” Dewey put his hands on his hips, looking to Uncle Donald’s door. 

“Uh, Uncle Donald?” Huey edged his way to the door, knocking lightly on it. “Are you in there?” Slowly he turned the doorknob. He poked his head into the room.

Uncle Donald wasn’t in his hammock. It was swaying still, a sure sign that their uncle had been in it just a moment ago. His end table was on it’s side, and the glass of water that usually sat there was on the floor in a small pool of water, shattered into pieces.

“Uncle Donald?” Huey repeated, louder this time as he walked into the room, giving the room a more scrutinizing look. Dewey was close behind, peeking over his brother’s shoulder curiously. There was a smell in the air that it took a second for Huey to place, but his heart sank when he realized what it was, seeing the little dark droplets on the ground, darkening the water where the two liquids met. The blood drops became a smear on the ground, leading straight to the closet. It’s door was a jar, swinging close just a bit. 

“Uncle Donald?” The third time saying it was by far the most hesitant. Huey took light and slow steps to the closet, becoming increasingly worried by the lack of response

“Deadbodydeadbodydeadbody,” Dewey chanted behind Huey and Huey threw a glare over his shoulder. 

Huey tore the closet open in one swift movement, taking some cautionary steps backwards and running into Dewey, nearly tripping over him. The coats didn’t so much as move, and Huey lowered himself so that he could see below them. The heavily shadowed figure of Uncle Donald could just barely be seen curled up at the back of the closet. His chest was moving up and down frantically in time with shallow breaths. One hand gripped the other, both with splotches of darker color that Huey assumed was blood. The duck’s head was just barely able to be seen before getting lost in the bottoms of the coats. Uncle Donald was looking forward, but it was a hundred-yard stare that looked right through Huey and sent a shiver up his spine. 

“Whoa, Uncle Donald, are you okay?” Dewey asked, reaching into the closet. His hand just grazed Uncle Donald’s before he pulled away quickly at the whimper - an actual whimper - that came from their uncle. “Uh, Huey, what’s going on?”

“I-I don’t know. Let’s, uh, um, let’s,” Huey fumbled, trying to think past the confusion and tiredness. That was what he got for staying up late the past few days, but did he really have to start running out of steam right now? “Let’s get out of here first. Uncle Donald, we’ll be right back.” 

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere.” Dewey shot a concerned look at their uncle, who’d twitched slightly at their voices but other than that hadn’t really reacted. “I’ll go wake Louie up while you figure out what to do.” 

Huey went back into the kitchen, grabbing a handful of the feathers on top of his head, yanking at them as he tried to think. Okay, just, think. What could cause that? Maybe shock from blood loss? No, there wasn’t enough blood for one thing. A panic attack? The hyperventilating matched up with that, but it didn’t sit quite right with Huey. Dang it, he knew he should’ve started working on his health badges! If only there was somebody who knew their uncle… Huey winced at the thought of their mother. No, she wasn’t here, she probably never would be, they couldn’t get any help from there…

Louie came out of their room looking exhausted.

“If there’s nothing we can do, why did you wake me up?” He grumbled as Huey and Dewey filled him in. 

“This is a family emergency!” Huey tried to convey the importance of that to his brother. “And so I called in family to help.” 

“But you just said-” Louie started. 

“Not you. I called Uncle Gladstone. He’s known Uncle Donald longer than we have, maybe this has happened before. He’ll know what to do.” Huey said with a confidence he didn’t really feel. 

They waited pensively for their uncle to show up, occasionally checking on Uncle Donald and finding that nothing had changed. He was in the same position, breathing so quickly it looked painful and yet somehow not passing out. At one point Huey had enlisted Dewey to help him clean up the broken glass carefully. When they finished they returned to the kitchen and found Louie had started Dewey’s plan. 

“What? I feel bad not being able to do anything, okay? Since when was baking a crime?” Louie defended himself. “It’s not like I’m the one who had the Flaming Crab problem.” Huey groaned but was in no mood to get into that debate again and so let it drop. 

It seemed like an eternity before the boat rocked as somebody boarded and Uncle Gladstone came down the stairs, looking rather cheerful despite the hour. 

“Well if it isn’t my three favorite nephews! I hit all green lights getting down here, just for you boys.” He gave them a wink, like it was some kind of secret between them. Gladstone sniffed the air and the oddest look of sheepishness - something they’d never seen cross their uncle’s face before - over took his usual self-assured smirk. “I hate to break it to you boys, but if you’re planning some kind of surpr-”

“Something’s wrong with Uncle Donald!” Huey shouted, unable to wait a second longer. All three of them grabbed Gladstone’s hand and dragged him to Uncle Donald’s room, barreling in and practically shoving Gladstone in the closet as well. Gladstone straightened, looking over his shoulder and raising a questioning eyebrow at the triplets, before taking the time to look in the closet. They could pin down the exact second when he realized what he was looking at, shoulders at first stiffening and then sinking with a sigh. 

“Dammit,” He muttered under his breath. He turned around, sitting against the doorframe of the closet, and it was like the bone-weariness that Uncle Donald carried had settled across Uncle Gladstone, “Of course you’d make me have to try this, Donaldo.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Louie asked. Uncle Gladstone scratched the back of his neck, letting out yet another sigh. 

“Yeah, yeah I do. I only saw him do this maybe twice. Della was better at this.” The last sentence was quiet, clearly not meant to really be heard despite being said, but the boys couldn’t help the little skip their hearts did at the mere mention of their mother. “I’m going to need a scented candle or something with a strong smell, the softest blanket you guys own, and hey, at least now I know why I was lucky enough to find an unopened pack of the world’s worst gum.” Uncle Gladstone’s chuckle was half-hearted at best as he held up a pack of black licorice gum.

Huey and Dewey ran off to grab the objects Uncle Gladstone has requested. Louie stayed behind and ended up sitting down next to Gladstone.

“Hey Donaldo. What, not so excited to see me? Eh, guess that never changes.” Gladstone wasn’t looking at Donald, instead staring ahead at the opposite side of the door frame.

“Uh, Uncle Gladstone?” Louie asked. “You know Uncle Donald’s not responding, right?” The last thing they needed was two uncles that had lost it.

“Talking to him should help.” Gladstone assured Louie. “At least it did when Della did it.”

“We got them!” Hurt and Dewey ran back in, Dewey with a lighter and a candle - Holiday Pine, their strongest smelling candle - and Huey with one of the blankets that had been pulled out of storage for the colder months. Gladstone lit the candle and put it to the side, letting its scent fill the room. He took the blanket from Huey and nudged Uncle Donald’s hand with it.

“C’mon Donaldo, stop trying to be a punk and just admit you like the nice soft and fluffy blanket.” Gladstone cajoled and then, to the relief of the triplets, their Uncle Donald with shaking hands grabbed the blanket. The grip he had on it became iron-tight. “We’re on your houseboat right now, you know that right? Your boys made me come out here at this absolutely ungodly hour of the morning.”

The sailor’s breaths were shaky and fragile, but they were deeper and longer than they had been. The three little ducks watched in somewhat awe as their uncle slowly started to come back to himself. Gladstone unwrapped one of his sticks of gum and offered it to Uncle Donald, gently urging him to take it. With an agonizing slowness, Uncle Donald opened his beak and bit the gum. And then…

“Ehk! Black licorice?” Uncle Donald’s voice was harder to understand than usual, but it was actual words.

“You’re welcome.” Gladstone said smugly, but the expression on his face was more of a relieved smile. Huey, Dewey, and Louie cheered, moving to run forward and hug the life out of their uncle, but Gladstone put out an arm and stopped them. “Give him a bit longer. How you doing there Donaldo?” 

“I’ve been better.” Uncle Donald grumbled. He was still chewing on the gum despite his obvious distaste for it. He continued running a hand over the blanket and when Gladstone offered a hand Uncle Donald took it and allowed himself to be lead out of the closet and back into his room, which was now extremely crowded. 

“Need some help fixing that up?” Gladstone gestured to the mean looking cut on Uncle Donald’s hand. The blood had mostly congealed, but it was still an open wound. Uncle Donald was able to give the weakest of glares, but a glare nonetheless, to Uncle Gladstone. 

“Like you’d be much help.” He said, but then tipped his head to the side, expression softening. “I could use somebody to talk to in a minute, though.”

“Of course.” Gladstone replied easily. All five of them left the small room and went into the kitchen. Gladstone ushered the boys to sit at the table but Louie broke away to check on what he’d been making, pulling the two pans out of the oven and setting them on top to cool. Uncle Donald disappeared into the bathroom, the sound of running water heard through the door.

“So, uh, Uncle Gladstone… what was that?” Huey asked. The other two boys looked to Gladstone expectantly. 

“Figures Donald didn’t tell you. He’s always been so careful with you boys.” He rubbed his beak for a moment, the wait making the boys ever more curious about the answer. “Your uncle has PTSD. That was a flashback. As far as I know he’s only done that a handful of times.” Uncle Gladstone gestured vaguely in the direction of the closet, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he usually fights off flashbacks with sheer stubbornness.”

“PTSD! Why didn’t I think of that?” Huey furiously flipped through his Junior Woodchuck handbook, as if looking at the section that would’ve been able to help them before would be of any help now. 

“Because Uncle Donald is boring? How did he get PTSD even?” Dewey was sprawled across the table. Gladstone looked away from the two.

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Dewey whined but Gladstone shook his head. The bathroom opened and Uncle Donald walked out, face wet and feathers slicked back a bit from splashing his face with water in an attempt to help ground himself. His hand was perfectly wrapped in bandages, nice and clean and white, no sign of the bloody mess it had been before. 

“Well, Donaldo, want to go for a walk?” Gladstone asked, all grinning and suddenly back to the uncle they knew, not the morose and serious stranger that had been in his place a second ago. Uncle Donald rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. Boys, stay in the boat. I’ll be back in a moment.” Uncle Donald promised, ruffling each of their heads before leaving with Uncle Gladstone. 

“So… what’s PTSD?” Louie asked, rifling through a cupboard for the electric mixer. 

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Huey recited, “People get it after experiencing something really traumatic. A lot of soldiers have it.” 

“How do you think Uncle Donald got it?” Dewey asked. He was sitting up almost thoughtfully now, a hand grabbing at his shirt. “Do you think it has to do with the ocean?” 

“I don’t know.” Huey admitted. “It’s hard to imagine Uncle Donald getting involved with anything that could give him ptsd, but Uncle Gladstone knew about it and didn’t seem surprised.” 

They lapsed into relative quiet. Relative as it is awfully hard for an electric mixer to be quiet. Eventually Louie had his brothers come over and help him give the frosting different colors, and they all worked together to ice the cake. It was messy work, as they really hadn’t waited long enough for the cake to cool completely, and the icing made a good effort of trying to slip right off the cake. 

Uncle Donald came back with his tiredness hanging off his shoulders, like he’d taken it back from Uncle Gladstone on their walk. Gladstone did not come back with him, but it was very much like their lucky uncle to just leave whenever he felt like it. Uncle Donald had a far off look, and Louie recalled Gladstone’s mentions of their mother. Did Uncle Donald also wish that their mother had been here tonight to help him out?

The cake was presented to him, and all signs of weariness left his face as Uncle Donald grinned and started crying, wrapping his boys in the hug that they had wanted when he had first started coming out of the flashback. The words they said were muffled as they were shoved into his shoulders, held so close and so dear.

“Happy birthday Uncle Donald!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I wanted something to have happened to Donald so that he thought he was back in the situation - an attack during his time in the marines or something - but still could interact with the boys and they gleaned information from that. But then my research said that wasn't really how flashbacks worked, and I wanted to be as accurate as possible.


	6. The Duck Family and the Sea of Monsters

The summers always meant that being left with a babysitter were even more often than during the school year. They also got dropped off at Funzo’s a lot. There used to be an entrance fee, but at some point the manager took pity on Uncle Donald and as long as it wasn’t more than once or twice a week, Uncle Donald could leave them to play around while he was out. It even got to the point where Uncle Donald trusted them enough to take the bus to Funzo’s on their own. 

So, when they’d gotten caught hot-wiring the boat on their latest bid for adventure, the logical conclusion was that they’d get a very stern talking-to that they wouldn’t understand half of and then be sent off to Funzo’s while Uncle Donald rushed to interview for a job he probably wouldn’t get. Instead they had the exciting and yet uniquely unsettling experiece of finding out that their uncle - and by association, they themselves - were related to the famous Scrooge McDuck.

Facts they had learned:

  1. Scrooge McDuck was way more boring than the stories made him out to be
  2. Despite similar names, Mrs. Beakly was nothing like Mrs. Beakerson
  3. It takes approximately thirty minutes for Dewey to break a doorknob off a door using a bag of marbles
  4. There is a girl living here that’s able to carry all three of them around
  5. She is terrifying, but also the most interesting thing they’ve seen since the front hall
  6. Climbing through vents so much in the past is actually a useful skill to have

The Wing of Secrets was too tantalizing to pass up on, and it was also the only thing they had to do. Well, besides Huey, who looked like he really wanted to stay in Webby’s room and start copying down the family tree she had strung up there. His brothers had to admit that seeing their own family tree - a crazy conspiracy board version or not - was kind of insane. They’d gone years and years of Donald and Della and Uncle Gladstone, a set of grandparents they didn’t know and a nameless dad and a great uncle vaguely mentioned with an ‘S’ who is now apparently Scrooge McDuck himself.

For a moment they’re able to live in the illusion of Scrooge McDuck being just as amazing as the legends and stories and myths make him out to be. It gets shattered pretty quickly, though, once Dewey finds the old painting.

Like all the other paintings down here, it shows Scrooge McDuck doing something impressive and heroic. Whoever the skeletal looking bird pirate is, he looks pretty rad and the fact that he’s locked in a sword fight with Scrooge is even cooler. It’s just as believable as anything else they’ve seen in the room. What in no way can be true, however, is the person painted on the right side side, mid-swing on a rope. He looks happy and excited and wildly out of place. 

“Is that Uncle Donald?” Huey asks in disbelief. Because it can’t be their uncle, not the same duck who made them wear life vests in their own home and insisted on them looking for cars at least four times before crossing the street. 

“Oh yeah! He was Mr. McDuck’s sidekick!” Webby replied, as excited and upbeat as ever, not seeming to notice how the curiosity left all three of the brothers upon hearing that. Huey looked to Louie to confirm what he was already thinking, and Louie shook his head.

“Dewey’s right.” Huey said, looking back at the picture of an event that never could’ve happened.

“Totally fake.” Louie agreed, giving the items in the room another glance and trying to figure out how much they’d still be worth if they were all props of whatever they really were. 

“Uncle Donald has never done anything cool.” Dewey informed Webby rather matter-of-factly.

“What?! Donald Duck is one of the most daring adventurers of all time!” 

oOo

The Isle of Ogygia was a difficult island to find. Not only did it usually only let washed-up sailors lost as sea in, but when trying to find it you ran the risk of accidentally finding yourself on Ithaquack instead. The original plan had been to have either Launchpad or Della fly them there. Della was the safer choice of the two pilots, but Scrooge had mentioned that considering how often Launchpad crashed, his skills could be a valuable asset for this particular voyage. 

When asked, however, both Della and Launchpad had turned them down. 

“Sorry guys, but Launchpad is helping me out of the DMV today,” Della had said, looking honeslty regretful that she wouldn’t be able to come, “My driver’s license is well over expired.”

“And I just got mine recently! I’m basically famous there.” Launchpad bragged, puffing his chest out while Della rolled her eyes.

“I can imagine that.” Huey said. 

“Say hi to Callie for me though!” Launchpad added as he was almost dragged out the door by Della who was grumbling a ‘let’s get this over with’. 

“So, now what? Should we just jump into the water and hope we wash up on Ogygia?” Louie asked, the four little ducks turning to Uncle Scrooge. Uncle Scrooge stared after Launchpad and Della for a minute, bill turned up in a deeply contemplative expression.

“We need a sailor.” He said after what might’ve been the world’s longest pause. “C’mon kids. I probably should’ve started with him anyway.” 

They followed after their uncle as he went out to the houseboat. Uncle Scrooge didn’t go out there often. In fact, most of them didn’t go out there often, and walking across the plank of wood to the boat made all three of the boys shuffle awkwardly. This had been their home for years. The boat has been rebuild time and again, and yet it still held an odd air to it, like it had been waiting for them all this time. Even know that the wood beneath their feet was different, newer and stronger that what they’d grown up walking across, it creaked with such familiarity that Huey had to remind himself that they were at their uncle’s mansion and not back on the docks. 

Uncle Donald was below deck, rooting through his clothes. There were three separate piles in the kitchen/living room area. He was so engrossed in picking through one of the stacks that he didn’t notice them until Uncle Scrooge coughed rather pointedly. Uncle Donald squawked and fell into the clothing pile. Dewey found himself grinning at that. Yep, that was their Uncle Donald. 

“Hi. What brings you all here?” Uncle Donald asked, standing up and peeling the staticy clothes off of him. 

“We’re making a trip to Ogygia.” Uncle Scrooge said. 

“As long as you don’t actually get lost at sea, that sounds fine.” Uncle Donald replied and knelt back down to continue his purging of unnecessary clothes. Scrooge put his cane down on the shirt Uncle Donald had reached for and drew Uncle Donald’s attention back to him. 

“We need someone to sail us there.” Scrooge further elaborated. “I might even be convinced to pay you for the job.”

Uncle Donald blinked a few times, staring up at Scrooge, then looking over at the kids. The three boys all clasped their hands together, trying to look as sweet as possible.

“Please Uncle Donald? We’ve been looking forward to this all week!” Louie begged. Uncle Donald sighed, a clear sign of defeat, and the kids cheered and high-fived each other while Uncle Donald picked some clothes out of the pile and went to another room to get changed, coming back out in his black sailor uniform, fixing a hat on his head and finishing clasping something around his neck, the rest of the necklace stuffed underneath his shirt.

The boat they took was on the smaller side of things, but bigger and far better equipped than the houseboat. Despite how nice it was, Uncle Donald grumbled when they came up to it. 

“My boat’s perfectly fine. She’s been through hell and back and is still afloat.” 

“No, a replica of your boat made of some scraps of the last one is still afloat.” Scrooge corrected and Uncle Donald quacked offendedly. 

“Well, my boat now. My rules. Kids, put lifejackets on.” Uncle Donald ordered and turned around to focus on the ship’s controls. All four of them groaned and Louie started to say something, but Uncle Scrooge - to the surprise of the four kids - shook his head. Dewey didn’t seem to get the message and spoke up anyway.

“But Uncle Donald, we’re been on way more dangerous things than a boat and survived! Like all the times the plane’s crashed!” Dewey pointed out. 

“The plan is to get to Ogygia and still have a functional boat when we do. That’s much easier said than done, so we need to plan for every eventuality. And that definitely includes getting shipwrecked.” Uncle Donald said rather sternly, leaving no more room for debate. Dewey didn’t look too pleased with that, but didn’t say anything else as he crossed his arms. The kids opened the closet, taking out the various and mismatched lifejackets in there and quickly getting into a fight over who would get which one. 

Louie stood off to the side, watching the fighting go down as he buckled the camo-style one on. What good camoflauge did in the water, he wasn’t sure, but it was the greenest one in there and had been given to him with little argument. 

“We should’ve taken my boat.” Louie heard Uncle Donald grumble again.

“Your boat needs a new check up, lad. Gyro did a good job with it twelve years ago, but just imagine what he could do to it now.” Uncle Donald snorted at that.

“Just what I need, a sentient boat that’s going to turn evil. I’ll stick with what I have, thanks. The Flying Dutchman wood works fine - and we could use a boat that can regenerate where we’re going.” Uncle Donald further stressed and Louie raised his eyebrows. Well, that certainly would explain how the boat had survived through so many of Uncle Donald’s tantrums. 

“Aye, perhaps, but I trust your skills.” Uncle Donald was focused on getting the ship out of the port, so he didn’t see Uncle Scrooge lift his hand to pat Uncle Donald’s back before putting it down without having gone through with the action. Louie saw it though. 

“We’ll see. I haven’t done something like this in a while.” 

“Now then, to get to Ogygia-” 

“I’ll find Ogygia. You just get ready for a fight.” 

A fight? Louie has to admit that piqued his interest. He would’ve thought that with Uncle Donald at the wheel, they’d be avoiding each and every even remotely dangerous task set before them. He’d almost prefer it that way. Just a nice and easy boat ride where he could take a nap and then wake up when they hit the island. Uncle Scrooge has mentioned some precious and rare gems could be found on the island, and various priceless hand-woven things that Louie didn’t find much interest in - what would he need a rug for? - but he could probably sell for quite a bit. 

“Louie!” Louie jumped, pulled out of his train of thought by his unluckiest uncle’s voice. 

“Yeah Uncle Donald?” At some point during Louie’s zone out, Scrooge had left the room, and behind Louie the other three kids were starting to resolve their fight. Webby had won the lifejacket with flames up the sides, leaving Dewey and Huey to fight over the blue and white one that smelled like an armpit and the hottest of pink that smelled like feet. 

“Did you bring your khopesh?” 

If Louie’s eyebrows could go any higher on his head, they would.

“Maybe?” Louie said. He’d gotten into a sort of habit of carrying his khopesh along with him on trips. It wasn’t always useful, but more than anything it usually at least helped him feel a bit more in control of situations that he couldn’t or was still working on talking his way out of. 

“You might end up needing it.” Uncle Donald said with a sigh. “Stay safe.”

“Okay. I mean, I’m probably not the one you’ll need to really worry about.” Louie nodded behind him. Uncle Donald let out a huff of laughter.

“Like you don’t get into enough trouble all on your own.” 

Louie shrugged and practically glowed under the smile that his uncle gave him. Uncle Donald ruffled the feathers on top of Louie head and he quickly tried to disguise how happy it made him. 

In the end, Dewey got the hot-pink-foot-scented lifevest and Huey got the blue-white-armpit-scented one. It was unclear who had won. Louie passed on what Uncle Donald had said about him needing his khopesh and Webby eagerly broke into a bag she had brought along and set to matching weapons up with the boys. She insisted she’d be fine with her fists and grappling hook, though she did begrudgingly stash a knife on her person as well.

Dewey didn’t seem completely convinced that there’d be too much to worry about. It was something that worried Uncle Donald after all, and that could mean a lot of things, and Dewey thought it was something on the lower end. He was more than happy to accept the dual blades that Webby offered him, though. Huey chose the crossbow, explaining that he’d taken crossbow lessons for Junior Woodchucks. Webby ended up correcting his grip on it, and Dewey and Louie revelled in a moment of Huey actually not knowing everything.

After an hour of begging, a pretty small amount as far as Uncle Donald went, they managed to get his permission to go out onto the deck of the boat. Showing off that they had weapons had helped to convince him, and with much reluctance he said that as long as they were careful - that means not trying to reenact a scene from the  _ Titanic,  _ or a scene from  _ Jaws,  _ or any scene from any movie. And that if Uncle Scrooge told them to get inside, then  _ get inside. _

“Yes Uncle Donald.” They chorused, and despite focusing on driving the boat, he was able to spare them a smile.

The sea-spray kicked up from the boat filled the air with a smell that gave all three boys a rather acute sense of homesickness. Uncle Scrooge was out there, gazing off into the distance where they could see some land coming into view.

“We’re getting closer sooner than I thought we would.” Uncle Scrooge commented when Webby approached him. He’d swapped his cane out for a sword he currently had sheathed, hands placed upon the hilt just as he would have them on his cnae. He didn’t sound worried, in fact there was almost a note of pride in his voice. Webby looked up at him curiously. 

“Isn’t it an island? Why are we heading towards land?” Webby asked. 

“I thought this might happen.” Uncle Scrooge said, and his voice now took on a grim note. “Before we’ll be able to reach the island of a daughter of a titan, we’ll have to get past Scylla and Charybdis. The good news, though, is that if the boat gets ruined, there’s a good chance we’ll end up on Ogygia anyway.”

“Wait, like  _ the  _ Scylla and Charybdis?!” Webby was shaking with excitement. At Uncle Scrooge’s nod she jumped with ‘whoop!’, pumping a fist in the air, and he quickly grabbed her lifejacket to keep her from accidentally jumping over the railing and into the ocean. 

“What’s got Webby so excited?” The trio of boys - who had been reenacted scenes from various movies a little ways away - had apparently gotten bored of that and now eyed Webby, who was brandishing her knife, cutting the air while declaring different names for the techniques. 

“She’s just excited that we’ll get to fight some monsters is all.” Uncle Scrooge replied. “Be on your guard, boys. We’ll need to pass right between Scylla and Charybdis to get to Ogygia.” 

“If we go too far to left, Scylla’s hundred heads will devour us! But if we go too far to the right, we’ll be caught up in Charybdis’ whirlpool and swallowed whole!” Webby explained, dramatic hand gestures accompanying the tale.

“Wow, do you think Uncle Donald needs some help? I think he needs some help.” Louie moved to go back to their uncle but was stopped by Dewey.

“C’mon, Louie! If Uncle Donald finds out you’re scared he’ll make us all stay inside!” He whined and Uncle Scrooge set a hand on Louie’s shoulder.

“Donald has a rough task ahead of him. It’s best if he has no distractions. We’ll just need to be ready to defend the ship. Your uncle will likely stray more towards Scylla. You can fight a monster, it’s much harder to fight a whirlpool.” Uncle Scrooge’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. Louie gave the door to the cabin a longing look but sighed and just adjusted his hold on his khopesh.

The straight between the two cliffs was narrow to begin with, but the whirlpool on one side and monstrous dragon-like heads on the other made it look even smaller. Uncle Scrooge unsheathed his sword, revealing that it was actually flaming. He shrugged at the awed stares the weapon garnered.

“It’s a multi-headed greek monster. I’m not going to risk having a hydra problems on our hands.” 

“What about our very much not flaming weapons?” Huey asked. Scrooge flapped a unworried hand at the question.

“Oh, just keep yourselves from being killed. Better to deal with an extra head than with having to save one of you.” 

The boat jolted forward, speed increasing suddenly and drastically as they reached the two monsters. It bounced along the water’s surface, practically more in the air than the water. Scylla’s heads hissed and dived to them. With a war cry, Scrooge swung his sword, easily cutting through the monster’s tough hide. Her heads hit the deck, a strong burnt smell meshing with the sea air. The now headless necks writhed in the air and pained screams coming from some of the neighboring heads. 

Webby, Louie, and Dewey had their backs to each other in a tight circle, slashing at anything that got close, while Huey was a little ways away shooting at other heads that were a bit farther way. The blood of Scylla left sizzling drops on the floor of the boat that the triplets didn’t need Webby’s warning shout to know not to touch.

Of course, the biggest problem with using a crossbow is that eventually you’re going to run out of arrows. 

“Uh, guys?” Huey said, reaching for another bolt and realizing that there were none left. 

“Don’t worry Huey, we’re coming!” Dewey promised, the three slowly edging their way towards him, unwilling to break their formation.

“Guys!” Huey shouted, more desperately this time as one of the heads seemed to notice that he was alone and vulnerable. She roared, rearing back at first before darting forward, a blur of motion. Huey screamed, throwing his hands in front of himself as if it would do any good. Scylla never reached him, however. Instead, there was another scream, higher-pitched than his, and when Huey opened his eyes he saw Webby in Scylla’s jaws. Her knife was sticking into the roof of Scylla’s mouth, and with clear effort she pulled it out and stabbed one of the monster’s eyes. 

“Webby!” Huey reached forward to grab her, his cry joined by those of his brothers, but the head holding Webby moved out of range.

“Webbigail!” Scrooge started over and made a step towards her, but the heads bearing down on his barely let him take that step forward. His hands were full with all the attention he’d gotten himself. 

The events were hard to keep up with in the moment. The sound of splintering wood, feet pounding across the deck, a loud squawk that was a garbled shout that nobody had the time to spare in trying to understand what was said. 

Inside one of Scylla’s mouths, Webby tried to stifle tears and the fear that was crawling around inside of her. She pulled her knife out of the monster’s eye and started slashing at the inside of the mouth. She felt Scylla roaring more than she actually heard it, and the blood from the slices Webby had made burned her chest and arms and hands but it was all she could do. 

Both she and Scylla made a surprised sound as they were suddenly in free-fall, though the sound coming from Scylla stopped abruptly and light poured through where the long and seemingly endless black of the throat had once been. Webby didn’t fall into the ocean, nor onto the deck of the ship. Instead, the severed head and by association Webby were caught in a pair of arms. She peeked out the side of the jaws and watched a pair of webbed feet jumping from the top of one head to the other until they made it back to the boat. The lower jaw was wrenched open with a crack, hands grabbing her and pulling her off of the teeth. She couldn’t stop the whimper she made, and there were gentle and soothing quacks that she couldn’t understand.

“It’s going to be okay, Webby, we’re almost through the strait.” 

She looked up, and the sun was behind Donald Duck, casting his features into shadow and giving him a bright aura. She choked back some more tears and despite the pain from the bite and the blood she leapt forward and threw her arms around him, holding tightly onto him.

“It’s okay Webby. I need you to get inside the boat.” 

“No!” She held on even tighter, terrified of being alone. She could just imagine being in that cabin, hearing the sounds of a fight going down and being left to her imagination to decide what they meant. No, she couldn’t do that. 

“Webby!”

“NO!”

She could just hear a sigh over the sound of the others fighting and the hissing and roaring of Scylla. The sigh was breathed into the top of her head, accompanied by a kiss. Her arms were unwrapped from Uncle Donald, and she started to shout again but found them wrapped around Uncle Donald’s neck. 

“Hold on tight, okay?” 

Huey was sandwiched between Dewey and Louie, unable to do more than bash nearby heads with his now pretty useless crossbow. He'd tried to convince Dewey to give him one of the dual blades, but Dewey had said they were called 'dual' for a reason. Huey was, however, able to see everything that happened. He’d been able to watch Uncle Donald burst through the door, actually tearing it off its hinges, scimitar in hand, jumping from head to head, cutting through anything in his way until he reached Webby. After he’d freed Webby, she hung off his back as he continued to fight off the barrage of heads alongside them. 

The water opened up again as they made it through the strait, the shear cliffs ending. Immediately Uncle Donald rushed back inside of the boat and to the wheel, Webby still holding onto him. The Louie and Dewey collapsed on the spot, exhausted, weapons falling to the ground. Uncle Scrooge set to work getting the dead heads off of the boat, tossing them into the water, and then on his way to the boat’s cabin picked up the blue and green triplets, Huey walking after them.

“Is Webby going to be okay?” Huey fretted. She wasn’t hanging onto Uncle Donald now, instead sitting by his feet, eyes closed. 

“She’ll be okay. Her feet are a little burned and she got some nasty puncture wounds from Scylla’s fangs, but she’ll be okay.” Uncle Donald told them. Louie and Dewey both took the information with exhausted nods, sitting down next to Webby and soon drifting off as well. Huey stayed awake, though, rooting through a cupboard until he’d pulled out the first-aid kid and dragging it over to Webby and his brothers. 

“I’ll be out on deck again.” Scrooge announced. “No need for something else to surprise us.” He left without another word, but he was looking at Uncle Donald, lifted a hand like he did whenever he pat one of the kids on the head, and then dropped the hand without having done anything. 

“Don’t worry, you can wrap the injuries if you want, but Calypso should be able to help.” Uncle Donald assured Huey as he pulled out some antiseptic and a small washcloth. 

“I just… she got hurt because of me.” Huey said, looking at the red on Webby’s feathers, how still the usually so animated girl was. 

“She got hurt because of Scylla.” Uncle Donald corrected. “And she’ll be okay. It’s the risk of adventuring. She knew it going in. She’s a tough one.”

“Yeah.” Huey agreed. He worked on cleaning up the wounds, but found himself looking at his uncle. It was weird. During the Shadow War, it was easy to see Uncle Donald doing really cool things. It was like the voice modulator had made him a completely different person, and then when it’d broken, he’d gone back to being their normal and worried uncle. But today Huey had seen that same fighter, that same adventurer again, but this time it was irrefutably his uncle. “Wait, do you know Calypso?”

“I’ve been in a shipwreck or two.” Uncle Donald said with a grin, pulling out a crystal pendant from under his shirt. “Get some rest. It’ll be another hour or so before we reach Ogygia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me a while to decide what would happen in this chapter, and I’m actually pretty happy with it
> 
> Some random notes that didn't make it to the chapter:  
\- launchpad has been to ogygia before and has met calypso  
\- the crystal pendant was given to donald by calypso and if he wears it out to sea, it guarentees he'll find her island again  
\- uncle donald can let himself go and be an adventurer again now that he knows that if something happens to him, scrooge and della will be there for the boys  
\- uncle scrooge has been really wanting to adventure with donald again but doesn't know how to ask  
\- you just *know* there were shenanagins at the dmv that weren't seen  
\- wood from the flying dutchman is used for only the hull of donald's ship. if it's made of too much wood from the flying dutchman, than like that boat he won't be able to dock
> 
> have any questions? hit me up! I'm happy to explain my reasoning and anything that might be confusing!  
have a request? won't guarentee anything but i'd be happy to hear you out!  
want updates on my nanowrimo that's lowkey highkey ducktales fanfic in disguise? i'll be posting about it at artful-browniebites.tumblr.com  
^ you can also check out my fanart there. I haven't done much ducktales fanart yet because breaks are rough to draw dude

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember where i heard 'the black anger' before, but if anybody does know i'd love to credit the fic! I've really like the idea since i heard it. 
> 
> (also incase it wasn't clear what the boys found out, it's that the anger is an inherited thing. The other four things are more like skills that Donald has)


End file.
